In the spirit of comic book craze, the Stranger Factoryhosted a one-time exhibition curated by Jimmy Palmiottifeaturing the art of well known comic book aficionados like Gilbert Hernandez(”Love and Rockets”), Amanda Conner (”Power Girl”), Geoff Darrow (”Shaolin Cowboy”) and many others.

Gallery offers a more egalitarian approach to art

By Leigh Hile

Sandra Becker and Jeanne Englemann have started a new type of gallery that diverts from the mainstream art exhibits. The grand opening of the Iris Gallery starts with an inagural show on Sunday, Dec. 16th

Eclectic group show at Matrix focuses on identity

By Sam Adams

It’s the early-morning hours before the zoo opens. Many of the animals are still indoors. The lone mammal in the zebra pen is a beautiful girl, completely naked but for black-and-white-striped body paint.

Stranger Factory’s Winter Salon is like an adorable nightmare

By Sam Adams

It's beckoningly grotesque, mischievously menacing and intriguingly oddball. That would be Stranger Factory's Winter Salon, host to the work of about two dozen artists, both local and international. Much of the work here, and continuously on display at the Factory, are resin sculptures of ghoulish, reptilian and space-age creatures. These figures have the perfection of assembly-line action figures, assuming that assembly line was on a planetary hybrid of Mars and hell—and situated in a bayou.

Richard Maitland’s life on view at Gallerie Imaginarium

By Sam Adams

He shared the stage and partied with Marilyn, exchanged correspondences and artwork with Jackie O., and introduced The Twist to India. The son of a New York City truck driver and Pinos Altos gold miner's daughter, dancer and artist Richard Maitland was born in Bisbee, Ariz., 86 years ago. His show Collected Memories on display at Gallerie Imaginarium reflects on a life in art and showbiz.

Forty years of Bruce Lowney

By Sam Adams

A four-decade retrospective on display at Exhibit/208 shows Bruce Lowney’s range as a master of the tri-tone lithograph. Collected Works charts his evolution as a printer and visual poet, while making space for his equally impressive large-scale oil works.

Abstractions in Balance is imaginative, sophisticated and poetic. The new collections presented by Lorna E. Smith and Harley Kirschner, running this month at the Range Café in Bernalillo, both draw inspiration from the natural world, but contain nuanced differences. Kirschner says “at the core of both bodies of work is a Zen simplicity.”

Concurrent exhibits at 516 ARTS home in on alternative communities

By Drew Morrison

The first thing you notice is a bearded man with “Hug Life” tattooed across his beer gut, standing on a homemade raft. This image, and numerous other examples of alternative living, are the focus of two summer exhibits at 516 ARTS: Across the Great Divide, a collection of photographs by Roberta Price, and Worlds Outside This One, featuring more than a dozen contributors. Across the Great Divide documents life in Southwestern communes―small, rural communities based around collective land ownership. Worlds Outside This One shows environmentally friendly and often portable methods of housing from around the world.

Little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous

By Summer Olsson

Upon entering the Stranger Factory, three distinct areas of well-laid-out eye candy unfold before you. Carefully placed paintings and prints decorate the white walls, and plenty of natural light washes over displays of toys and figurines. Brandt Peters, who co-owns Stranger Factory with his wife, Kathie Olivas, says they decorate the shop as they do their home. “We show how you can actually put your own collection together,” he says. They salvage furniture, shelves and other recyclable cool stuff to mix in with the art pieces.